[Indigo]

Gattley attempted to edge backward without being conspicuous as Swizzle raised her voice. He was, by now, pretty certain she didn't mean him any harm, but he'd had a very confusing day so far and he hadn't meant to talk about the circus in the first place. And he didn't think her anger, if that was what it was, was directed at him...but he didn't want to be nearby if...well...best to make it clear that he hadn't meant to upset anyone.

"I do not know about these rights, or if it was wrong. It is true, I did not enjoy being in the cage. But sometimes I would not show my tricks right, or how they wanted. They told us that doing things wrong was bad. I think sometimes the cage was a punishment? To make us do better?" He paused, thinking. "But they did keep us in them all the time...I do not know. I am sorry."

[Freezair]

Gattley seemed alarmed. Immediately, Swizzle drew back. She should have figured that would startle him, but sometimes, her emotions flared up without her input. Her tails drooped in apology as she slowly marched toward him. She nuzzled the side of his flank, and her ear folded in the rub. She didn't have the arms for a hug, so that would have to do.

"Sorry, buddy. I didn't mean to shock you, you know? But the way I was raised... Heh. I was always told by my mom that, no matter what, everybody, no matter whether they got skin or fur or feathers or scales, whether they're rich or poor, smart or dumb, you gotta treat everybody right. Everyone's got a right to live free an' not be controlled by anyone else, to be able to follow their own path, an' to not have people hurtin' 'em left and right. She said she knew it better'n anyone else, because she used to not think that way, until she saw what thinkin' like that could lead to. It's just... you've been done wrong, Gattley, an' that makes me mad. Because you're nice, and I like you, an' you don't want to see the people you like gettin' hurt."

[Indigo]

"I agree that no one should be controlled, and I am glad you think that way," Gattley said solemnly. And...she liked him. Which would not be particularly exciting, except that he hadn't really heard that from anyone in...ever? No, wait, there had been that little boy who'd snuck into the circus after dark and stuck his hand through the bars on the Seraphent's cage and talked about how he'd always wanted to run a circus...

But that had been a long time ago.

"Perhaps it might be good to discuss other things?" he suggested. "I do not like to think of the circus anymore. It was not a good place. And it seems that you do not like it either."

{I'm really sorry for being so erratic about this. I'll do better from now on, I promise. Also, I'm sorry for this post being so sub-par...}

[Freezair]

"Yeah... I understand that," Swizzle said. "When I asked Mom what she meant by that, that she knew better than anyone what it meant to treat people wrong, her eyes got all distant. But at the same time... I don't think you can run away from it forever. ...Not that I blame you, or are callin' you a coward or anything!" Swizzle was suddenly adamant. "But if those people are still out there, they should be stopped!"

She turned around in the room, gazing at the high ceiling. The music had changed to a slightly different concierto. "Hmm... Well, how about we go to another room? There's different paintings in one over. They're cool-looking, too!"

[17]

[Indigo]

If they were still out there...could they be stopped? When he'd been among them it had seemed that there would be no end, that this was just the way life was, and inside the circus no law ever seemed to touch them. But he knew there were ways out, now, although there were probably better ones than the one he'd taken, and if things were different out here...the circus couldn't flee the law forever. If only he could remember the name, maybe he could find them, or at least find someone who could stop them. The people who ran the circus wouldn't listen to him, but maybe some other authority might.

Gattley nodded as a general response to Swizzle's words, and said, "Why are there different paintings in different parts?" But of course, if people painted a lot of different things, there were probably some sorting methods he didn't know about. Which made him wonder. "Are there things that people are not allowed to paint?" There were always rules somewhere. If there were rules about how you could treat people, then why not about art?

[Freezair]

Swizzle gestured around to all the different wings. "They're organized by when they were painted, you see! Older paintings over there, newer ones over here. They're also divided by style. Some people like to paint things one way, some people another. Some people use bright colors, some people use dull ones... Some people do it realistically, and some people make things look... less real, but still pretty."

Swizzle's chest swelled with pride, and she patted her own shirt. "That's the great thing about art! There ain't no rules about what you can and can't do. Oh, sure, some people like it if you do one thing or the other... but nobody can tell you what not to paint! ...Though, there are some pictures that you can't usually display in public." She scratched her chin in thought. "Since humans always wear clothes, it's sometimes considered real rude to paint 'em without any on. But if you do it right, it comes out OK. Like that one." Swizzle pointed to a painting of a merwoman surrounded by several Merham. The woman had a human upper half, and that half was topless. But the painting drew more attention to her surroundings and companions than her lack of clothing. "And if you paint something real violent and nasty, people might not like it."

Swizzle's face suddenly fell. "Actually, now that I think about it... I just thought of something you can't paint, but maybe you're better off not knowing. You've seen a lot of troubling things, pal, and I don't wanna put your mind on other horrible things."

[Indigo]

Good to know that nobody could be told what not to paint; Gattley had become rather fixated on the idea of creating art to inspire people not to mistreat people, although he probably wouldn't be able to actually...paint, because he was so big. Maybe he could paint something really large, or get someone else to do it for him? But at least, if no one could tell him what not to paint, then people who would prefer to lock other people in cages wouldn't be able to stop him.

It was all very interesting, everything about the way art worked. And if there weren't rules, or at least not in the way that he had known them, then if he did something wrong he wouldn't be--well, there could be no punishment because, if there were no rules, then it wasn't possible to do something wrong, was there? Certainly not as he understood it.

But. "Something you can't paint?" Gattley asked, and then, affronted, "I would not be better not knowing. I came here to learn things, so I can know how everything works. How can I learn if there are things I am stopped from knowing? If I have seen so many troubling things, more cannot hurt me." Well, maybe they could, but it seemed to him that, since he hadn't even known the things he was seeing were so horrible when he'd seen them, they couldn't have done too much damage.

[Freezair]

Swizzle slunk close to the ground. More than just Gattley's feelings were on the line here--she had no idea how to bring up the subject herself. Gattley was so innocent sometimes; would he even know what was being implied? And these weren't the sort of things you generally brought up in public!

"Uh," she said. "Well, er... let's just say... you shouldn't draw bad things happening to children. I mean. There's specific bad things you shouldn't draw, but... I don't feel very good talking about them. I know you wanna know, and it's cool that you wanna learn stuff. But I'm... not the best person to explain things. Hmm, but some artists do draw that sort of stuff to show off how awful it is... hmm. Well, I guess I can say... if you do draw bad things happening to kids, you gotta make it look like so people say, 'Wow, that's awful.' Not so people think it looks cool or anything. Because, uh..." She swallowed. How did she put this, anyway? "There's some people who really hate kids, and want to see bad things happen to them." That was more the opposite of the truth, really, but it would do for now, she thought.

[Indigo]

"I am sorry. I was not meaning to make you upset," Gattley said, drawing his tail in nervously. Though he certainly didn't know exactly what Swizzle was talking about, the last thing he wanted to do was make his new friend uncomfortable; anyway, he had enough of an idea now to let it go. He didn't really understand why somebody would want to see bad things happening to children, since from what he'd seen they were some of the nicer people in the world, but he supposed that some people had skewed ideas of things. He'd seen plenty of that in his time.

He sought for a way to change the subject. "We could go to another room and see paintings from another time. It would be interesting. And that is also history, yes? So I can learn about that and art at once."

[Freezair]

((Did you see that? I think and "M" tag just went flying over our heads. Good thing it missed us, eh? ))

Swizzle perked right up at that. "Oh! Yeah! Of course! They even have a special kinda history just for art. They call it 'art history.' Real creative, huh?" Swizzle paused for a moment, because it had occurred to her as she spoke that maybe Gattley wasn't well equipped to handle sarcasm. If he got caught on her double meaning, she'd try to at least speak plainly about it in her follow up. "...But at least it's the kind of name where everybody knows what you're talking about. C'mon, let's go see!"

Swizzle lead them past the roped-off paintings and into the next segment of the art wing. The pictures in this room lacked the faded, aging look of the previous room's paintings. These had a more contemporary edge. The room itself was less open, as well, as multiple statues dotted the room. There was a vibrant sculpture of a rearing Thorn Penticorn in the center of the room. A sign marked the piece as a recent acquisition, having been made following the Imperial and Purine war. Another sign, with much larger print, warned visitors to stay away: The thorns protruding from the sculpture were sharp as the real deal. Beneath the bramble branches crossing the beast's green body, scenes of anger and carnage were carved into the body of the Penticorn.

"See, this is what I mean about showin' bad things," Swizzle said. "There's pictures of people dying carved on this, and fighting... it's pretty horrible. But look at how scared this Penticorn looks. This statue is all about how the artist thought the war was really bad. And she made this statue so people would know how bad it was, because she didn't want there to be any wars any more. Don't you think?"

[Indigo]

Well, no, art history wasn't an especially creative name. Was that the point? Probably a good idea to go back to ignoring things he didn't understand, at least with this kind of thing, since it was most likely just his limited grasp of the language that was the problem. He thought he might be getting the hang of it, though. Whatever it was, he dismissed it for now and followed Swizzle into the next room, noting the change in art style as he did so.

Gattley had seen Penticorns before--one of them had a brief stint in the circus before her stubborn nature had gotten her thrown out again, maybe like he'd been, although things like being locked in a cage had only made her more determined to get free. But she'd been blue and not covered in thorns, which made him wonder if this was just another imaginary thing. He leaned a little closer to see what was carved into the sculpture, nodding at what Swizzle said. His understanding of war was more than a little hazy, since as with most things he'd only heard about it from people passing through who happened to mention it near him, but if it was responsible for the things happening in these scenes then it wasn't something that should ever happen. He wasn't really surprised that there were wars, though, considering how he'd seen some people behave.

"It makes sense to show how bad something is. People would not want to hurt each other then." He looked at the Penticorn again. "Those thorns look like they would hurt. Is that more showing war is bad? Or does a real Penticorn look like that?" It would be good to know the difference, so he didn't get confused looking at other things.

((I feel like all my posts for this are the same, but I'm not sure what else to do. Sorry...))

[Freezair]

((Don't worry about it. If you want a leaping point, since you seemed to be indicating that Gattley might like to become an artist... I was giving Swizzle something to show him, that people can use art to sort out their feelings and help them express the bad things they've been through. Something that could maybe inspire him.))

"There are real Penticorns like this," Swizzle said. "They're called Thorn Penticorns and Bramble Penticorns. A lot of them fought in this war, so they kind of represent it. They call that symbolism," Swizzle said with a nod. "That's when one thing means something different from what it usually does, and it represents something different. So the Thorn Penticorn is a symbol that means 'war' here. But you're right, the thorns do tie in because they show the pain of war. See, Gattley, you think like an artist!"

Swizzle pounced around the statue. "Ever think of maybe trying your hand at art yourself? Maybe it could help you. You've been through a lot. You could use it to show people what happened to you. Then they might try and stop it from happening again."

[Indigo]

Gattley nodded slowly. Thinking like an artist--Swizzle hadn't said it outright, but he got the idea that she was an artist of some kind, and he liked the idea of thinking something like her. And it meant he was more likely to be able to, well, make art. That was an important thing.

"I could try to make art, if I could find a way how. I am not sure I have the right kind of shape for it. No hands." He looked dubiously at his tail--maybe that would work, if he could control it finely enough to keep from braking things. Or his wings, if he was very careful, but that seemed kind of unlikely. "I would like to stop the things that happened to me from happening to other people. Do you think it could work? I am not so sure people would pay attention." Pay attention to him, he meant. He was about as far from being influential as he could get.

[Freezair]

"Well, you could try studying magic," Swizzle suggested. "You could learn to manipulate objects through magic, or maybe you could learn to turn human and have thumbs and stuff." She wiggled her nose in thought. "Or you could use your wings as a brush! Feathers. Sounds neat!" She chuckled, too.

"That's sort of why you make art. To get people to pay attention to you. I mean, look at my shirt!" She pointed to the purplish-orange pixelated pattern sprawled across her shoulder. "Lots of people ask me about my shirt! They think it looks interesting, or they recognize it. And I can say, 'Yeah, I designed it myself,' and explain it to them and things. You could try showing your work to some galleries to see if they'd be interested. You could submit them to fairs and try to sell them to maybe libraries or doctor's offices or places that wanted stuff to display. And if people liked it, they'd ask questions about it, and they'd pay attention."

[Indigo]

"I am not sure I could learn to do magic. I always heard that only some people could do it. But I could try." A lot of things he'd heard were turning out to be wrong. He did wonder about learning to turn human. Would he decide on the shape himself, or did it draw on some inner something-or-other to create an appearance? There were people he could ask, he thought; probably he could find someone to teach him. Painting with his wings, he was pretty sure, wouldn't work except for something with a less definite shape, but maybe it could be symbolism...he didn't know.

Getting people to pay attention by submitting to galleries and such... "I do not know that people would take my art for galleries. I would not explain it very well. I am not so good at speaking. You might have noticed." He tried to add a lighthearted tone to the last sentence, to show he was trying to make a joke. It was hard to be sure how well he'd managed it, since his voice didn't lend itself to anything in the more cheerful range, but he thought Swizzle would get the idea. "But I might try it."

(I'm really sorry about leaving this so long. I don't have much of an excuse.)